Watching
by ChiaraMon
Summary: "We don't leave the people we love behind. We leave them with a part of ourselves. We leave them with the friends and the family we shared, the lessons we taught them, the strength we gave them, and the knowledge that we will always, *always* love them." Summer comforts Pyrrha, who is wracked with guilt and concern for grieving Jaune. For r/RWBY's WPW#175


**A/N: Gods am I grateful for this prompt. Aside from adding perspective to my OTP, it gave me a reason on the other hand to explore behind the scenes at the Xiao Long household in Patch, and writing comfy Ruby home life scenes was so wholesome, I hope I could do justice.**

**Revised (minor) 2/20/20 - Opening scene felt a teensy bit too edgy so I dialed back ever so slightly.**

* * *

Jaune lay face down in his bed, as he would do for hours these days, sobbing into a well-worn pillow in a cot in his room. He had just woken up, but his mind was reeling and vicious, bloodthirsty memories clawed at the very back of his head.

He had only just escaped the pleasant dream he had, but crossing the liminal border of wakefulness had those memories, still fresh in his mind, transform into brutal, violent beasts stuck inside of his head, harassing him for the simple accident of having woken up.

"Jaune!" Pyrrha cried out, resting her hand on his shoulder. "Jaune it's okay!" She rubbed and rubbed, hoping that she could somehow give him strength to fight through his panicked state and return to the room they currently shared. "It's okay, Jaune! I'm here."

Jaune ignored her, and it became clear that she was going to lose this battle again.

_"Py-..."_ He choked out in a voice hoarse and muffled. _"Pyrrha!"_

She smiled down at him and stroked his shoulder. "I'm _here_, Jaune. I'm right here."

_"Come back!"_ He shouted into his pillow.

Pyrrha's eyes shook and her lips began to tremble as she pleaded with him in his state of panic. "Jaune I'm here. I'm right next to you!" She rubbed harder, hoping that her touch would reach him.

_"Come back here... right now..."_ He faintly sobbed, still unaware of her. _"Gods dammit all..."_

"Please, Jaune..." Pyrrha begged, but he would not respond. Instead, he stayed embattled. He trembled and he shook and he lurched and he writhed, and there was nothing she could do for him.

_"... I can't do this without you..."_

Jaune Arc lay in bed held down by these waking demons, crying into the softness of his pillow, alone in his cot, in his bedroom, in his family's home in Mistral.

After long, painful, heart-wrenching moments of helplessly watching him, unable to touch him, unable to comfort him, to give him strength or to give him the knowledge that she was _truly_ right there with him, Pyrrha sighed and held her head in her hands.

She wanted more than anything to come back to him. To be there in the physical with him, to touch him and to comfort him. It tore her heart out to see him like this, wracked and so painfully broken by her loss, but she would not stop trying. Not in all the time that would still separate him. She _would_ reach through to him some day. Somehow.

As Jaune lifted up his blurry, bloodshot eyes, he gazed to his window and saw the red of an Autumn leaf falling outside.

"Pyrrha... I miss you."

* * *

Pyrrha's eyes ripped open and her vision had ceased. Now she was back... _here_. In the place that would be her new home for seemingly all of eternity.

She knew she wouldn't be alone here and that eventually she would be reunited with her friends, but in the wait until that time, she was left to worry. To worry for the health and the safety of the boy she'd left behind on Remnant- the boy she'd come to love with all her heart.

"Excuse me... Pyrrha?"

She heard an unfamiliar bubbly voice call to her. She turned to face a shorter, slightly older woman with dark auburn-black hair and a braid hanging loosely across one side of her head. She smiled serenely at Pyrrha and nodded. "Gods am I glad to meet you."

Pyrrha tilted her head at the mysterious woman, clad oddly in a long, pale hooded cape. "Are you... an angel?" She questioned.

Did angels even exist in this place? She was still so new to this... _Heaven? _To _Elysium? Valhalla? The great, big palace in the sky?_ To the afterlife that had so many names she didn't know what to call it but just that.

Suddenly the woman's calm features broke as a hand shot up to her chin and she giggled wistfully. "Ohoh, it's been quite a while since anyone's said that to me!" She remarked fondly while wiping tears from her eyes. As she fixed a braid of hair behind her head, she smiled at the young huntress and continued. "That was under drastically different circumstances, of course," she jested.

Pyrrha willed her a knowing laugh and nodded. "So it would seem..."

"Ah, but to answer your question, no dear, I'm not angel." The woman returned her gaze to the huntress and donned a more neutral smile. "My name is Summer!" She reached her hand to Pyrrha and greeted her in a shake. "Summer Rose."

Pyrrha's eyes widened slightly and Summer was content that no further introduction would be necessary.

"You must be..." Pyrrha saw the woman nod proudly and she smiled at the sight. "You look so much like her," she marveled.

Summer reached an arm out to rest on Pyrrha's shoulder. "My little Ruby's met so many wonderful people and made such amazing friends in her time at Beacon, you know." She closed the distance further and her face displayed unwavering sincerity. "I'm glad you were one of them."

A bittersweet smile overtook Pyrrha's face.

"She looked up to you a lot, you know." Summer continued as she focused warmly onto emerald eyes. "I know because I know how being around you made her feel."

Pyrrha's eyebrows raised at the remark, but Summer could see no show of confusion in her face- more of a gentle curiosity, or a knowing invitation to elaborate.

"You've _done it_ before, haven't you," she gently asked. "You've... _watched._"

Pyrrha's eyes widened, and where her face had shown invitation just a moment ago, it now bore only shame and guilty self-awareness. _'She knows I've done that?' _Her mind reeled in knowing embarrassment. _'She knows that I've... _spied _on him?'_

There were times in this place when Pyrrha, in her deepest of isolation, of loneliness, and of desire, would close her eyes and simply... _sink._ There was a descending sensation that came over her as her mind reached ever deeper inwards, and she could eventually reach in and touch- and know, and feel, her very own _self_. That core which was the essence of Pyrrha Nikos was right there in front of her.

It was the part of her that she had always felt so strongly when in the height of her emotions. It bounced when she was happy- like when she was alone with Jaune. It flared up when she was determined- like when she would protect Jaune. And it twisted, taught and torn when she was depressed- like she was when Jaune hadn't returned her affections.

So alarmingly often, in fact, had Jaune elicited these feelings in her, and that was no less true now in this realm after life than it had been in that better part of a year at Beacon when she had been right there next to him.

In these moments of hers, if she reached far enough downwards as she had been so freely able to in this place, she could tap into a root of surreal sensations that felt new to her, yet so utterly familiar at the same time. A new sinking sensation would pull her even deeper into these memories and it felt so real she could almost swear that she was back on Remnant, in the flesh. In a manner not unlike channeling her own aura into Jaune's in order to activate his, she felt she could now grasp onto this deeply buried root inside of her own being and suddenly, those same valent emotions would bring on new experiences within her.

This was a part of her that bounced when Jaune was reunited with his family, that flared up when he told his sisters his tales of fighting alongside his beloved teammates in Beacon and that often - so, _so_ tragically often - would twist and torture itself with memories of the late Pyrrha Nikos.

What she could feel in these moments, she could only guess, were the emotions that Jaune Arc was feeling in that world they had once shared together. It was like she was watching him from afar, but somehow also seeing what he saw, hearing what he heard, and feeling what he, constantly, absolutely languished in feeling.

It felt so alien to her- so intrusive to eavesdrop on his heart and mind - his very _soul_ \- in that way. She would try her best to avoid it, but she would never win. At least in this moment, meeting Summer, she could take some small relief from the fact that she was not alone in indulging such urges.

"Don't let it trouble you, child." The voice of Summer beckoned her out of her guilt. "We can do this now because we've touched these people in our lives. Whomever it is you share this bond with so strongly, you are a part of them- a very intimate part of them." She smiled as Pyrrha's eyes began to flutter, holding back tears. "It means your souls are, in a way, _connected_. Infinite in distance and-"

"And unbound by death," Pyrrha completed in a lightly wavering tone that still managed not to break a smile. She meekly excused herself as she began to wipe the corner of her eyes. "I'm sorry."

Summer pulled her in and gave her a hug. Pyrrha gripped tightly onto the back of her hooded cape and embraced the warmth as she quietly dried her eyes into its fabric.

After a long moment of comfort shared between them, the huntresses took a seat and Summer offered sympathy with some of her own experiences.

"My Tai was the same way, you know." Taking the young girl's hands, she dropped her gaze to the ground between them, far off in thought. "I made him worry endlessly in life..." she trailed off, her own voice betraying a waver of its own now. "And he made me worry just the same after my death."

Pyrrha peered sadly into the older huntress' melancholic silver eyes as she went on.

* * *

"Here girls, come get it before it gets cold!"

In the small kitchen of a cabin nestled in Patch, Taiyang, recent father of two, walked over to a counter holding two glasses in his hands.

Warm milk was a comfort food, and a staple of the Xiao Long household, especially since his two little girls were now old enough that lullabies and bedtime stories had lost their magic charm.

Yang flew into the kitchen in a heartbeart, wearing a grin so wide it looked like it had been painted on.

It proved to be infectious as well, as Taiyang smiled at the sight of her even as his heavy heart was threatening to pull him down to those darkest cavities in the emotional minefield that was his life as a recently-made single parent.

"Yang," he said as he began making a third glass of the miracle beverage. "Be a dear and bring Ruby hers as well, would you?"

"Yessir!" She shot back with a laugh as she grabbed the glasses, her face somehow even more beaming as the smell had made its way into her nostrils.

"And don't run, or I'll make you clean up the spill before you have an-"

"I won't spill!" In a flash, Yang was out of the kitchen and rounding past the doorway. Taiyang chuckled and nodded along, as his own glass was now ready.

He took it up to his room and sat it to the left of the picture of Summer, Raven Qrow and himself.

"Made you your favorite-" he said with a chuckle before his throat tightened and his eyes burst from the veneer of neutral fatherly contentment. His head crashed down into his palms and he broke into tears at a spontaneous wave of fond memories.

After an hour had passed, he turned for the last time in his attempt to sleep. He wouldn't find rest. His mind was reeling. His thoughts were racing him down and he'd long run out of places to hide. As much of a saving grace as the Xiao Long family remedy was, it had done nothing to help him tonight. Not with the memories that were roaming his head, seemingly out for his flesh tonight.

He had to break out. He had to _physically_ outrun the beasts that were barreling down on him now, or he feared his daughters would lose a second parent in their sleep.

He shot out of his cabin, barely of a mind to remember to lock the door behind him, and bolted off in a direction. Whichever direction would take him the farthest, through the least familiar section of the woods that surrounded his home. He ran, and he would find his way back later. After he'd managed to lose his pursing thoughts.

* * *

"Into the forest... In the middle of the night." Pyrrha said through a look of horror as the older woman recanted her... _"watching"_ was the term she'd used earlier - over her widowed husband's perilous fugue.

Summer nodded, still not able to make eye contact. "There he was- a big, beautiful, juicy, heartbroken, sobbing mess of a meal, served on a golden platter for the Grimm."

"Gods, that's awful..." Pyrrha expressed as a tremor coursed through her eyebrows. "But... he lived?"

Summer sucked in her bottom lip and nodded her head 'yes'.

"Qrow," she explained as her eyes returned to the greens of the young huntress. "Qrow, bless him, was apparently passed out just lightly enough on the sofa that the slam of the door stirred him up." She smiled as she cupped Pyrrha's hands tighter.

"Tai was saved because he had people who cared about him, and people he could count on to look after him." Summer's expression sobered up as she imparted her wisdom to the younger woman. "Your-... _Jaune_, was it?"

Pyrrha confirmed with a nod.

"In your vision, was he alone? Or did he have people there who would support and look out for him?"

Pyrrha smiled through the tears welling up in her eyes. "He was at home... with his family..."

"And his friends, do you trust them to look out for him no matter what?"

"_Yes_, miss." Pyrrha responded in confidence without a second's pause. "Beyond a shadow of a doubt."

Summer smiled as she let out a sniffle. "Then you have absolutely nothing to worry about, dear."

Pyrrha's head fell down and she held onto the dark-haired huntress for another comforting embrace. _"Thank you, Summer,"_ she cried.

Summer hugged Pyrrha close and rubbed the back of her head with a practiced parent's touch.

"We don't leave the people we love behind. We leave them with a part of ourselves. We leave them with the friends and the family we shared, the lessons we taught them, the strength we gave them, and the knowledge that we will always, always love them," she imparted. "And that love _is_ infinite in distance."

Pyrrha responded the best she could through her sniffles. "Unbound by death..."

* * *

In a small cabin in Patch, Taiyang knocked on a wooden bedroom door before sliding it open.

Ruby quickly turned over in her bed and shut her eyes, trying her best to mimic snoring sounds. As her father approached, the snores grew louder and she started feinting conversation in her dream. _"... Hmmm... no Professor Goodwitch, it wasn't me..."_

"Can't sleep, kiddo?" The blond huntsman reached the side of her bed and the sound of a glass setting down on the nightstand paused Ruby's snoring for a second.

_"... Try checking under Coco's hat..."_

"You know, it's going to get cold if you just-..." Taiyang stopped as he peered over his daughter to see the used tissues scattered on the mattress at her side. He stood silent and watched the little girl's lump under the covers lay still.

_"Gotta get lots of rest for the fes-..."_

Then it quivered. He heard a sniffle.

_"For the **festival**..."_ A trembling, bunched up voice called out as Ruby tucked her head further into the covers and began sobbing into her duvet.

Taiyang promptly sat down at her bedside and rested his hand where he could best guess it would find her shoulder. Ruby's lurching gradually lessened, though her sobbing hadn't faltered. She soon shot up and wrapped her arms around her father as she sat in her bed.

He threw his arms around her and stroked the back of her head. _"Shhhh, I know,"_ he whispered as his chest grew wet with her tears. _"I know, Ruby."_

Inside of his tunic shirt, any words she could attempt to cry came out only as a muffled wailing vocalization.

"It's going to be okay, Ruby." Taiyang's own tears were now pouring into her hair as he tried to console her. "Let it out, sweetie. I'm here."

After enough time had passed for Ruby's crying to gradually cease, Taiyang picked up the glass from the nightstand and placed it in her hands. "Made your favorite," he jested.

Ruby laughed through an encumbered voice as she wiped away another tear from her reddened eyes. She took a sip and slowly gathered up a smile.

Eventually, the family medicine kicked in and she began to feel drowsy. Taiyang cleared out the tissues from her mattress and soon the girl laid back in bed.

Ruby glanced up before her head hit the pillow. "I love you, dad."

"I love you too, Rubes." Taiyang leaned in and kissed her head. He placed his hand back on her shoulder and gently rubbed her as she settled in. "I love you so much."

Once his daughter was fast asleep, Taiyang slowly crept out of her bedroom and back into his own. He sat at his bedside and looked to that picture of his old team at Beacon and his eyes drifted to the leftmost figure.

"I guess that old miracle parenting trick you taught me saved the day again, hun." He smiled and took a sip from the remainder of Ruby's unfinished milk.

"Thank you, Summer."


End file.
